Massacre
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: [Anorexia/Digimon V-Tamer] Because killing three people for your little sister is perfectly justified. Even if one of them is - or was - your best friend.
1. Sigma

**A/N:** Remi has to draw the line at cutting people up and cannibalism. At least when it comes to ratings. In all fairness, that there is the reason this is a crossover with Anorexia. A word of caution if you ever decide to read the manga. Warnings outside Anorexia crossover material include some rather callous thoughts of mental, physical and sexual torture, and killing, and different types of abuse in the three chapters relating to the three characters' pasts.

Challenges

The Prompts in Steps Challenge, 5.07 – bloodshed  
The Crossover boot camp, #044 – crack  
The Diversity Writing Challenge, g24 – write a fic that is M-rated  
The Valentines to White's Day Advent (2015), - day 24 - ranuculus (charm): write about a brainwashing/trickery

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She needed a complete makeover. But most importantly, she needed to survive. She needed to wake up.

Her spine had been snapped clean in two, but that could wait. The brake was low down enough that she could wake out without her arms, without her legs. Wake up and do nothing, perhaps. But she'd wake up. The spine was a problem, but not right now. She needed to be up and ready to move before it really mattered.

So…not the spine. The brain and the heart, and of the two, the head had taken the heavier blow. He'd seen the scans. Full of blood. Slowly being crushed. She was drowning in her own head and she'd never even know it. But even if they drilled a hole through her skull and take the blood out, the outer part of the brain was dead.

Funny how blood was poison now. Killing the brain it had nourished for so long, just because there was a little too much.

But he could fix that. He just needed another brain for her.

And soon.

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 **Massacre**

Chapter 1  
 _Sigma_

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He was a sad, pathetic child. A brilliant brain, but he hid it behind a mask. If the brain was as plastic as everyone thought, those pathways that led to speech would have died and rotted long ago. Luckily, the brain was more resilient than that.

Of course, he had to make sure first.

It began as a simple game, at first. A simple game to see how clever he really was, beyond his marks. An IQ test, of sorts. Because he wouldn't pick an inferior brain for his sister. But he passed. Except that annoying habit of his to stay silent and hide behind a mask and loose fitting clothes, he passed.

So next became the more difficult test.

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Poor Sigma, who got lost in the strange world inside his computer. Virtual, of course. All of it virtual. And sped up because he didn't exactly have months of time. More like days, before the blood got into the brainstem and that was the end of Rei, but he was going to get this all done before that. One day. Two, tops. Three before Rei was in any real danger.

So Sigma got the express version. And Neo sat at his computer and worked out the bugs in the meantime, in preparation for the next time.

Because a new brain wasn't all Rei needed. There would undoubtedly be a next time.

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So Sigma got his express adventure. And something to help him through it because it wouldn't do for him to become a vegetable or get locked-in syndrome by the end of it all. Especially the latter. That was brainstem damage right there and it would be out of the fire and into the frying pan. And all Sigma will have been good for was testing out the system he'd hastily thrown together.

Or that's a lie, he thought. He'd been looking into that stuff for a long time. Virtual realities. Perfecting the body and the mind. He'd just never thought he'd be using it like this, to save his sister's life.

And Sigma who he didn't even know would be the first of his pawn sacrifices.

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Poor Sigma, who thought he was getting stronger for a time. Sigma who was all alone just how he wanted to be, except for his defending knight who wore a mask just like he. Sigma who fought and fought until he thought he could take his mask off on his own, until it looked like he'd beat the world and maybe rule it one day as well.

But Neo couldn't let that happen.

That was the peak, and now it was time for the cultivation.

And so things rewound. The mask cracked before he could remove it with his own hands. His guard died before he could be the one to protect instead of the protected. He was stripped bare, of all he had, before he could ascend new heights and discard the old self on his own violation.

He broke, and Neo took great care breaking him because he needed the spine in tact.

He got that. The world became flat: not a place for Sigma to leap off and let gravity do the rest. It would have been too easy, anyway, but this was no sadistic will but Neo not wanting to take the chance of damaging his carefully crafted prize.

For Sigma, it was weeks. For Neo, it was a day and a night.

And, finally, it came to an end with the blood dawn, wrists slit and blood staining the dark box he'd trapped himself within, far beyond their game.

Or not a game, really. There'd never been a chance for Sigma to win.

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It wasn't on the sunrise news. It'd take a day or two for them to find him. Or would have, if he couldn't risk them seeing that incision in his skull, when he'd taken the spine away. He'd been so careful, so loving. Dissecting every nerve and vessel, removing every bit of tissue that stubbornly clung.

Perfect. He knew it was perfect.

And now to replace Rei's.

That was the harder bit. The hospital, with their constant watch and his second stage, but he chased them away. He, the grieving brother who simply wanted some time with his sister before she passed away. Not that she would. He wouldn't allow it…but they didn't know that. They would never know, with all the scars already on her body. What were a few more?

So he had his chance, and he could trust the hospital to not be growing bugs in their curtains… no, of course he could not. Everyone knew bugs _loved_ hospital curtains and linen and stuff. But they could still be avoided. Aseptic techniques. Plastic wrapped in so many bundles it probably hadn't seen the light of day before. Fancy new scalpels and needles all sealed in their packages still.

It didn't bother him in the least to slice open that other back: haphazardly too because he set the entire place aflame after that, so they'd never see the scars. But this was different. This required care: utmost care. And this was his sister, where it would matter a great deal and in more than just lost time if he failed. He had time for a second chance with Sigma, and replacements all lined up. No second chances when it came to Rei.

They already had her on all the life support equipment. He kept them there and carefully cut out her brain. Didn't need anaesthetic: she was in a deep coma already, brushing death's river flow. She'd feel nothing as he cut away her broken, bloodied brain and lovingly mopped up all the blood. That took a while. Because new blood oozed in and that he had to give something to stop so he'd have the time to put the new brain in and make its connections there.

Of course, he'd always known it would fit like a glove. He'd chosen Sigma for that very reason.

And they did. Every nerve. Every vessel. And he sew them all gently into place, with that new fancy thread that would dissolve when it wasn't needed anymore, like it had never even been there.


	2. Mari

She woke up. Slowly, but steadily. In little bursts that were barely a breath long, and then longer. She woke and stared at him. Sometimes his name fell from her lips. Sometimes there was a stark terror in her eyes.

But she never moved.

He knew what she needed now. She needed those chains that bound her to be removed, or else she'd drown. She needed the ability to move, the _freedom_.

She needed a new spine…and he knew just where to get one for her.

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 **Massacre**

Chapter 2  
 _Mari_

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Mari was different from Sigma. Very different.

So, of course, he needed a different way to attract her – and to break her.

But she was simple. Foolishly simple. So predictable. He only had to appeal to her looks and she came like a butterfly drawn to the flame. A beautiful butterfly, maybe. A sharp butterfly, to a person with a quarter of his brains. But dull to him.

It didn't matter. He cared nothing for her brain. Her body was another matter. How flexible it was. How healthy. How dirty at times too but that didn't matter. Rei wouldn't be getting her skin. Just that deep part of her that kept it all moving.

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Mari's virtual world was not lonely, like Sigma's, but full of people. It should have disturbed him, really. She craved attention. She drank it. She fed off it. It was like his own private porn show and he was only relieved he hadn't chosen this girl's brain or heart instead. They'd be useless.

Yes, sex was in part a reflex and all reflexes had their roots in the spine but sex had its roots in other places too. In the brain: in the forebrain in particular, like other emotions. For some, it went even deeper. Into the amygdala. Into fear, into repulsion. But Rei was ignorant. So was he, in a sense. And Sigma. Another reason why Sigma had been so perfect. Untainted. Free to let Rei choose what to do and when…and that was after she was healed.

As she was, she did not have the ability, despite want or lack of want.

Mari did. And she flaunted it until she reached her peak. Until it all changed.

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He stated watching after he twisted her world. After he made euphoria her fear, her hate. He saw it strip away at the gloss she'd covered herself with so generously. And he saw what was underneath.

And he almost laughed. It was ironic. Silly and ironic. Hiding abuse with more of the same. Hiding pain with happiness and now she remembered it all and couldn't cover the bruises up again with make up. And she crumbled. Lost her gloves somewhere. Lost her body suit.

She had a companion like a rose: a pheromone that drew the moths to her and she'd wanted it oh so badly at the beginning. Now she wanted to escape but she couldn't. He'd lathered her with that rosy smell too well.

She sobbed at first. Sobbed and screamed and actually fought a few wraiths off and he was suitably impressed. She had strength in her legs. And good reflexes, when it came to that. Rei wouldn't be defenceless with that spine and he'd known that. It was why he'd picked her.

Pity though that she'd be missed. Not like Sigma who people barely knew, barely remembered except to laugh about that mask of his. But not like Rei either. Just a poster face people recognised and would wonder the absence of. Just a pretty body easily replaced by someone else.

The problem was he couldn't make her disappear: an idol like her. He didn't need to, though. Already, he could see the course of action to take. Well before she drowned in a lake of her own mind. Even before she broke.

Outside of her virtual world, she lay on the floor of her apartment, flushed and pale and her underwear moist with what was her euphoria turned fear.

.

She broke eventually. Took a little longer than Sigma but that was also because he wasn't on that desperate a time limit with her. Rei must be going crazy without the ability to move, but she was alive and in no physical danger and he needed to clean things up. Mari wasn't perfect. Not as perfect as Sigma. It took a little longer to work things until he was satisfied.

And then she was floating in a deep black lake in the virtual world, and he paid her newly vacated body a visit.

As he'd known, her underwear was moist with vaginal fluids. No blood. She'd washed it all away with the lake water, and her life as well. Dull yellow hair she'd spent so long caressing into any semblance beautiful form – but he had not come for her hair. Yes, Rei was lacking most of hers but hair could grow back, would grow back. Hell, even the dead's hair grew. He wasn't concerned about the hair.

He made a long incision down her back, and far more smaller ones, and it was a little harder to get her spine out than Sigma's spine. But he did it.

And then he took her other organs, one by one, and crushed them and painted a mural on her apartment wall.

.

It was all over the headlines the next day. "Rabid fan debones sensational model". Of course, they leave most of the details out. He didn't laugh when he saw. He barely reacted at all. The spinal cord and all the nerve roots it spat off swam in a small vat and he teased his way into a chance to put it inside Rei where it belonged.

It was made easier by the fact that she was no longer critical. Made harder by the fact that she was awake but anaesthetics weren't too difficult to come by. He kept her drugged for a few days afterwards. Sleepy. Unable to move. Telling the nurses how she'd said his name before falling under waves of sleep again, like she'd done before. Pretending those marks on her back were from the accident too, because they were all still bright and fresh and he'd sewn them up so the stitches didn't show again and sped things up a little as well to cover the last of her tracks.

He was reading the newspaper that claimed they hadn't found new leads on the idol Mari's tragic mutilation when Rei's fingers twitched. And he cast aside the paper like it was nothing – because it was – and cried for joy instead. Because here was his success. His final goal.

Rei fell asleep again, but this time she was freed from her chains. She could move.

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The last things she needed was a stronger heart. Hers slumbered too much, even now. Had struggled too hard in keeping her alive. Had done its job and could be retired now.

He didn't have to search, this time. He used that instead to just sit with her. He didn't even need the virtual world for this one.

He toyed with the idea of using it anyway.

Hideto would just disappoint him though. Again.


	3. Hideto

She needed a new heart. Her old one had almost died trying to save her and now it would throttle the life out of her slowly if he let it. Sure, he had months this time. And Rei would not realise what held her back until she could stand on her shaky feet and wonder why, after all this time, all this rehabilitation, it still exhausted her to take a future step.

And she needed a new heart so the last scraps of the betrayal could be wiped from her body.

Because the skin was replaced once every seven years, and quicker in her case where most if it had been carved, injured, and bled. The skin would forget. The heart, brain and spine were other matters, but each of them had been replaced. Would be replaced.

The last was the heart.

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 **Massacre**

Chapter 3  
 _Hideto_

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His guilt made him the easiest and the hardest to manipulate.

Because it was his fault. His fault, and he needed to pay for it.

If the Saibas asked, Hideto would give it. He knew that. Rei knew that too. She hadn't asked.

Hideto had been too deaf to hear the plea she hadn't spoken aloud.

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The car had swept her off her feet long before he tore his eyes away and dashed back.

Why had he even dashed back? Neo couldn't rewrite the past. He was too far away. Why hadn't he stayed with Rei instead? Saved her despairing, betrayed look. Given her a glimpse of hope before she touched death's river flow instead.

Neo made sure Hideto knew all this, in the waiting room as the watched the clock wind down.

Hideto had, of course, already known it all. But sometimes it helped to hear it from someone else. Sometimes it didn't help at all.

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He didn't see Hideto for a while after that. Not while Rei's brain was swimming in her own blood, the toxin of her body's making. Not when he fixed it. Not until after she woke.

That hypocrite.

At least she never heard his apologies. He didn't deserve to have her hear them. How he'd failed to save her. How he'd stood there, frozen, as she was plowed over. How he'd run away from here thereafter.

'Rei doesn't need your apologies.' He said it, once, harshly.

Hideto recoiled.

It was days later that he asked – like Neo had always known he'd asked – what she _did_ need.

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Perhaps he was unnecessarily cruel about it. But he didn't regret nor repent for that sin of his. Perhaps Sigma and Mari hadn't deserved to break how they had but he'd done them a favour. Built them up. Shown them the peak they may never have achieved on their own. But Hideto was different. Hideto had already reached his peak, somewhere. And then topped gracelessly from it.

All that was left was for him to hand over his heart and die. Die so that Rei could live like she was supposed to, and the wrong of that afternoon could be corrected.

Because if he'd loved her, really loved her, he would have died in her stead.

And he was Neo, giving him another chance to do just that.

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'What does she need?'

'Your heart. Your life.'

He said it, finally, when the boy had really started to despair, started to crack.

He doesn't expect it on a silver platter that night, but he expects it.

The conversation, of course, takes place far away from Rei.

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He saw the pin pricks in Hideto's palms. Foolishness. Pain without scars. Not until they've been poked a thousand times and one didn't poke needles into the thickest bits of skin in guilt, but swallowed them so they tore the far more fragile skin of their throat.

Swallow a thousand needles… It would be a shame if any of them went down the wrong way.

In any case, Hideto did no such thing. Just the pin pricks on his palms as though they'd be even a fraction of the pain Rei had felt that day.

And when they seize to hurt, all the way up the arm and leaving the most sensitive parts – the fingers – like the coward he was.

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After the admission, he took a more proactive role. Because now he knew. Knew he owed Rei his life and giving it would be the only way to absolve his guilt.

And of course he couldn't see her. She was barely awake. Barely listening. Barely speaking. And when she did, she did it for her brother: Neo who gripped her arm and watched her fingers curl around his and her lips twist into a smile. All for him. And he wasn't going to let Hideto have even a shred of it all.

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He caved, eventually. Cut his wrists and filled out his donor form, and it went through the legal channels this time. Went through and they honoured his request to give Rei his heart.

They gave it to her, and finally, she was climbing back up.

She didn't go to the funeral though. She didn't even know it had happened, because he hadn't told.

He went. If only because he had to. The world would have been suspicious otherwise, skipping out on his best friend's funeral.

But they weren't best friends. Not anymore. Not since he'd betrayed him by falling in love with his sister. And not since he'd betrayed _her_ by letting her get so close to death when he was right there and could have stopped it.

Guilt and hate. And necessity.

Now it was all over, and it was only Rei and Neo.

.

Rei was perfect. Smiling. Standing – though she still needed rehabilitation before she could walk. 'I'm glad,' she softly said, 'that you're here with me.'

'I'm not the one who got run over by a car,' he replied lightly.

But her face darkened, and he knew what she meant. He couldn't say it in front of her, though.

'Where is Hideto?' she'd wondered, one day, aloud.

Not that she'd tired of Neo's presence. She never could. Never would.

'There.' He placed a hand over her still aching breasts. She stared at the deep scar in the middle of her chest.

She hadn't understood until someone else brought her condolences of Hideto's death, and she'd been angry for a time, and tearful afterwards. 'Silly Hideto.' And she cried until she fell asleep on Neo's shoulder.

He was getting off lightly, in Neo's opinion. All he got for almost killing Rei was a "silly Hideto". Lucky him. But Neo had made sure he'd paid in full. And Neo had made sure that almost death hadn't been what it so easily could have been instead.

Three sacrifices, all to save his sister's life.

And she was perfect. He'd done it.

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He'd never let her know.

It pained her that Hideto had killed himself and handed his heart over to her, and that was enough. Guilt was something she couldn't escape, after all. Carved into that heart like it was. And cowardliness as well.

He'd knowingly given those traits to her because he knew what she would have otherwise done.

Because Rei was his, and no-one, not even Rei herself, would take her away again.


End file.
